


Worst-Case Scenarios

by apolesen



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Study, Dubious Consent, F/M, Mental Health Issues, bad relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 03:21:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12290139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolesen/pseuds/apolesen
Summary: Potential relationships can go well, and then there are the worst-case scenarios.- - - - -Three scenarios of how each of Chandler's potential relationships in series three might have gone.





	Worst-Case Scenarios

 

_Lizzie Pepper_

He pressed his eyes shut. Perhaps he shouldn’t have agreed to stay. There was an ache in his chest which made him feel distant. At the same time, his body – a thing of itself – raged. Beneath the ache, there was a tightness that had nothing to do with his mounting panic. As if she felt where the two met, Lizzie put her hands on his rib-cage for leverage.

‘Joe.’

The purr made his open his eyes. She had stopped moving, propped up on her knees. She was smiling that smile of hers that he wished he could think of as anything else than wicked. She was not wicked. She did not do any of it on purpose.

‘Is this good?’

He swallowed.

‘Yes,’ he said, making himself grab her thighs. ‘Go on.’

Her grin widened and slowly, still looking at him, she sank back. Her hair swung around her shoulders, curtaining her eyes. With every thrust, her breasts moved. Her hands pushed at his ribcage as she moved upwards, then relaxed as she fell. The tension in his belly mounted as he pushed against her. She laughed and threw her hair over her shoulder. He should laugh with her, pull her down against him and kiss her laughing mouth. All he did was hold her knees tighter and push. He watched how her face changed as if in stop-motion, her laugh turning into a groan, her lips forming a capital O in her face. She paused and exhaled raggedly. The tension he had felt was gone. It was a relief in more ways than one.

He should have embraced her, or rolled her onto her back to pull out, or at least given her a hand up. Instead, he let his arms fall to his side and she climbed off him without his help. The way she smiled down at him made the ache in his chest expand. He pushed himself off the bed, took off the condom and threw it in the bin.

‘Joe?’ It was not until she spoke that he realised that he had become frozen there. ‘Are you okay?’

He turned around, putting his arms around himself. She had already crept under the duvet. Now, she pulled the covers aside and patted the mattress beside her.

‘Come to bed with me,’ she said.

‘No,’ he whispered, shaking his head. Her face fell.

‘What’s the matter?’

He just shook his head again. Breathing felt difficult. He wanted to hide from it all – the messy room, her waiting arms, the things he was expected to say. Before he knew it, he was sitting down, his knees pulled against his chest and his arms over his head.

‘Joe?’

Her breathing came closer, carried by the sound of her bare feet against the carpet. He felt her body-heat as she knelt beside him.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, crestfallen. He could not answer. His mouth was filled with sobs. All he could do was shake off her hand when he touched him and bite down on his fist, smothering the sound of his crying.

 

* * *

 

_Mina Norroy_

‘Joe?’

The call came from the hall, just from the door. He should get ready and go, but he stayed where he was, sitting on the bed. He was not done yet. The cufflinks gleamed against the white bedding in the half-light. He moved a pair to the right of another. They had looked wrong on the other side. And that pair was gilded silver. They couldn’t be with the gold ones. Quickly, he put them in the right place, the threat of what might happen otherwise throbbing behind his eyes.

‘Joe.’

Mina’s heels clicked closer. The door opened.

‘We’re going to be late.’ Then, catching sight of him, she sighed. ‘What is it now?’

‘Nothing,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m just looking for the right ones.’

‘You’re already wearing a pair.’

He took them out of his cuffs.

‘They’re not right.’

She gave a long, frustrated sigh.

‘Joe, they’re fine. If we don’t leave now, we’re going to be late.’

He didn’t answer, simply stare at the cufflinks. He could not tell which ones he was supposed to wear. Mina’s breathing seemed loud in his ears even if she was standing at the foot of the bed.

‘You’re not even wearing a tie.’

‘I’ll get to it.’

She rubbed his forehead.

‘Do you not want to go to this party?’ she asked. ‘Is that why you’re stalling?’

‘I’m not stalling,’ he murmured.

‘Yes you are,’ he snapped. ‘You’re like a kid who’s dragging his feet. Look, just wear these ones.’

She reached out.

‘No, no, don’t!’

She picked up a pair of cufflinks and thrust them at him. The movement made the sheets shift and the cufflinks slip together. Pushing aside her hand, he started trying to sort them out, but they had mixed. They were not even if pairs anymore. As he scrambled to restore order, before something went wrong, he felt his shallow breathing speeding up.

‘Joe, just leave it.’

He bit back a sob and shook his head. She threw her hands up in frustration.

‘I am so _sick_ of this,’ she snapped and turned. Somewhere through the din of his thoughts, he heard the front-door slam shut after her.

 

* * *

_Morgan Lamb_

This was how they always ended up, in opposite sofas. His head bowed, hers raised silently. Him hunched over, hands clasped together, her posture relaxed but professional. He could feel her eyes on him, but he could not make himself meet them. Instead, he stared at the scuff in the carpet from the coffee-table’s leg. He wanted to rub it until the fibres stood up again, or at least push the coffee table back into it. But perhaps that would only leave another print from where it had stood.

‘Joe, talk to me,’ she said. He pulled his gaze from the carpet, looked at his hands instead. The leather of the sofa creaked as she leaned forward. ‘Joe.’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ he whispered.

‘I can’t help if you don’t talk to me.’

It was true, of course. At the same time, it was not what he wanted to hear.

She was supposed to be the one. The woman who made it work. The one who could fix him. ‘You don’t need fixing,’ she had said early on. ‘You just need help.’ He knew she was right. He did need help.

Perhaps he had been confused about what he had felt towards her. Perhaps it was not affection, attraction, love. Perhaps he just wanted her to help him. He had thought it might be easier to date someone of her profession. She would understand, give him the space he needed. He had not anticipated that clinical glance in her eye whenever she caught sight of his rituals. It might be something he just imagined – assuming he knew her thoughts when he had no way of doing so – but he had never dared ask. What if she answered yes? And even if she answered no, he would not believe her.

This was not a relationship, at least not a romantic one. For every thing he did, he could feel her evaluating him. Second-guessing what thoughts he was driving away with his rubber-band, glancing at his wrist to assess the bruising. Asking him about his day as if searching for symptoms.

Or perhaps he was being paranoid. It might all be on him. Maybe she was the one trying to have a normal relationship, and he was the one who wasn’t able to. What he took for professional assessment could simply be worry. Wasn’t it normal for someone to cancel their plans for the evening if their partner was going through a rough spot? Why then did he feel it was like being on suicide watch? Why did it bother him so much that she was sitting opposite him, not beside him, when he did not want to be touched right now?

‘What do you want, Joe?’ she asked.

He swallowed and found an answer.

‘Not this.’

He dared to look at her now. Her head was slightly tilted, her mouth neutrally set, her eyes fixed on him. He thought he could see compassion in them, but it was distant, a perfect part of the controlled mask.

‘I know you don’t,’ she said.


End file.
